Monday, March 16, 2009

Muffins are the quick bread-of-choice around here. In the winter, I'll leave the oven door open afterwards, to warm up the kitchen; in the summer a 20-minute baking time won't heat up the house. With my flours and grains kept in gallon glass jars and various measuring cups for scoops, it's easy to just scoop and mix, and have hot muffins in 30 minutes or less.

Last night, for dinner, we had sausage-stuffed squash. There was enough room in the pan to roast a little butternut squash along with the two Carnival squash we had for dinner, so I had some fresh mashed squash to make breakfast muffins this morning.

This is a great whole-grains recipe and is endlessly adaptive. It can be a sweet breakfast bread or a savory dinner muffin depending on what you have on-hand. I'm always changing up the fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be), the herbs or spices, and the extra add-in(s), which is why I just call them my Anything Oatbran Muffins.

¾ cup fruit puree (I mashed up the squash and didn't have quite enough so made up the difference with some applesauce)1 egg2 tablespoons oil (I substituted more applesauce)1¼ cup milk (I used buttermilk)

½ cup chopped nuts or dried fruit (I added a handful of raisins; sometimes I'll add both nuts and fruit, or fresh corn kernels, or whatever else sounds good at the time)

Preheat oven to 400º, grease or non-stick spray muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together in a large measuring cup. Stir wet into dry, just until moistened. Stir in the extra add-in(s). Divide among 12 muffin cups (cups will be almost full, but that's ok). Bake 20-25 minutes, and try to cool on a rack before your husband burns his mouth snatching one up as soon as it's out of the pan.

That's one of the best things about muffins - its a method and then it becomes easy to keep changing it up with variations. Plus, so quick! I use applesauce all the time in mine instead of oil, it keeps them very moist I found and lends a nice sweetness at the same time.

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Welcome to Firesign Farm!

writing about sustainability and simple living, high-desert gardening trials and tribulations, canning recipes and home cooking, sewing and other thrifty arts (occasionally, a personal fascination gets thrown into the mix, too).

Sadge (rhymes with badge, short for Sagittarius) and sweet husband Aries live on their semi-rural acre, watching as urban sprawl creeps ever closer. Can wood heat, gardens, clotheslines, and chickens co-exist with strip malls and high-density housing next door?

Where is Firesign Farm?High-desert northern Nevada, near Carson City, the state capital: just 30 minutes drive from Lake Tahoe and the California state line to the west, Reno to the north, and Virginia City and the Comstock Lode to the east.

Notable Quote

Nay, the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once.~John Donne

After I read the Little House on the Prairie books, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a pioneer - living off the land, in a cozy little home where my husband and I made everything in it. That dream never died. I did what I could, when I could. And then I met Aries – a fellow pioneer spirit. He started with a tiny house (all the plumbing on one wall of the kitchen – from the sink you’d walk through the shower stall to get to the toilet). He built a garage and added on a bedroom and bathroom. After we were married, we did all the work to turn it into a cozy home – wallpapering, sewing, building furniture, everything from laying floor tiles to texturing the ceiling. This isn't really a farm - it’s an urban homestead, on a little over an acre (half of that still just sand and sagebrush). But over the years we’ve raised horses, a goat, a pig, rabbits, ducks, geese, bees, chickens and guinea fowl (only the latter two here now). I dug up the horse corral with a pitchfork to put in a garden; we used our wedding present money to buy fruit trees. Through canning, dehydrating and cellaring, I rarely buy produce from the store. I'd say my childhood dream came true.